Okay, I know I'm the worst. I promise I'm going to update my other stories eventually, but I couldn't get this idea out of my head, and I wrote a bunch of it (8 chapters). I was gonna wait till it was done to post, but I figured I might as well see if there's even any interest since I know this is pretty AU for the One Tree Hill fandom. This is loosely based on the Hunger Games (loosely). It takes place in the Panem universe, but the plot itself won't follow the plot of the Hunger Games. Review and let me know if you're interested in reading more, and I'll keep posting and writing!
I stare at my best friend as he tries not to laugh at me, but he is failing miserably and soon he is clutching his sides and chortling.
"Nathan," I whine. "I told you I'm not good at this."
In my hand is a bow, and somewhere about 30 feet away from where I had been aiming at a rabbit is an arrow.
"Well you're gonna have to get good at it," he says as he stops laughing and begins looking around for my arrow. "You're not going to Cray, Brooke."
I watch his eyes harden and one of his hands turn into a fist and I sigh, putting my eyes on the ground in shame.
"I don't like it, Nate, you know that. But somebody has to feed us and let's face it, Peyton's not winning any awards for her charm and neither is my mother."
Nathan pegs me with a glare. "Which is why I'm trying to teach you how to feed yourself, Brooke."
"I'm trying to learn!" I whine. "I'm just no good."
He sighs, unable to admit the truth but silently acknowledging it with a frustrated shake of his head. "Well, you're pretty decent at throwing knives, at least."
"As long as the object isn't moving," I snort. He laughs and throws an arm around my shoulders.
"You just need a little more practice. During the Games we'll have more time to practice."
I swallow as I remember that outside of our forest sanctuary, today is Reaping Day. Today, two teenagers from our district are being sent to fight to the death in the Arena for the enterainment of the Capitol. Today marks our second to last Reaping; once we surpass eighteen, we'll be free. For now, we are seventeen and hopeful. I cringe as I remember how many tesserae Nathan has taken out to feed Peyton and I, at the expense of his own name being entered in the Reaping bowl twice each time. If he was only supporting him and his mother, he would have been able to get by with hunting, even in the winter when game is sparse. For the last four years, though, he's been looking out for Peyton and I, ever since the accident.
We live in the mining district, and it is divided into two distinct sections: the Town, where the Merchants and their families live, and the Seam, where the miners and their families live. Peyton, Nathan, and I are all from the Seam. Peyton's father had been best friends with mine, and our mothers had been close as well. Our ramshackle houses were right next door to one another. Nathan, on the other hand, had grown up in Town for the first eight years of his life, until his father, then the Head Peacekeeper, had himself transferred to the Capitol, without his wife and son. Deb and Nathan Lee had quickly been relocated to the Seam, and Deb had never recovered, wasting away on hard liquor.
"We should head back," Nathan says with a heavy sigh as our moods shift.
"Yeah, Peyton is probably wondering where I got off to. I hope she hasn't been stuck with Victoria too long."
Nathan nudges me out of my guilt. "You know her. She's probably sitting in the meadow and sketching."
I smile at the thought of her, using the art materials I had saved three years for to buy her for her birthday last month. The light had returned in her eyes ever since, for the first time since the loss of her mother a year ago, after which she had moved in to me and mother's house.
As we sneak back underneath the fence into the district, I toss him a berry from my hand, which he catches with his mouth, followed by a cocky grin.
"May the odds be ever in your favor," I say in a horrendous imitation of the Capitol accent. He crinkles his nose and laughs at me, waving goodbye as we part at the crossing of our streets.
On the way home, I find Peyton exactly where we expected her to be. She's sitting in the meadow near our house, her eyebrows furrowed as she focuses on her drawing in her lap.
"Hey P. Sawyer," I grin, plopping down beside her. She looks up at me and smiles.
"Hey B. Davis," she says, proudly thrusting her drawing at me. "What do you think?"
It's a sketch of me, Peyton, and Nathan, laying in this very meadow just a week before. We had snuck out and watched a meteor shower. In the sketch, Nathan is in the middle, pointing something out to us. I have my eyes closed, a contented smile spread across my features. Peyton looks wonder-struck, her pale green eyes wide and shining.
"Peyt, it's beautiful," I say honestly. Peyton is one of the most talented people I've ever met, with the ability to bring beauty to the most mundane things; even to three scrappy kids from the Seam.
She beams at my compliment and hands it to me. "I want you to keep it. I made it for you, for luck today."
"I won't need luck," I say in a mock show of confidence. In the last year, I had to take out several tesserae for the first time without Peyton's knowledge. She would have done it with me, and I promised Elizabeth Sawyer and myself when she was on her death bed that I would spend the rest of my life protecting my best friend. I stand, pulling Peyton up to stand beside me. "But I'll accept the beautiful gift anyway."
She nods and wraps a skinny arm around my shoulders as we walk back to my house. "How bad do you think Victoria is today?"
I sigh. "One can never really know, can they?"
When we enter, my mother is sitting at the table, coldly watching the clock. I say a mumbled hello to her and then drag Peyton into our tiny room, about the size of a cupboard. We pull out our best dresses, mine a red cotton, hers a jade green. We quickly get ready. When we come out, my mother continues to stare at the clock before sharply turning her eyes on us. She looks us both up and down before spitting out, "You look horrible, Brooke. Elizabeth, dear, you look beautiful."
Peyton freezes, tightening her grip on my wrist. I'm used to my mother's abuse; my striking resemblance to my father caused a strange resentment in her after his death. Since Elizabeth was lost to pneumonia, my mother seems to only recognize Peyton as her mother.
"We're going to the Reaping, mother," I say coolly. She stands abruptly and nods, following us out of the house and into the town square. We walk there in silence, pricking our fingers and signing our names to register. As we enter the main part of the square to go to the designated space for seventeen year old girls, we bump in to Nathan, who gives us each a comforting hug.
"Good luck, girls."
We wish him the same and we stand beside one another. Haley James, the mayor's daughter, appears at my right and offers us a shy smile. She's a bit of an outcast at school, everyone is fearful of the mayor's daughter, but after Peyton's mother's death, Peyton had almost failed out of school. If it had not been for the gentle tutoring provided by Haley James, Peyton never would have passed. We sit with her at lunch, as Nathan doesn't have lunch period with us. Nathan is not particularly fond of people from Town, and he watches our exchange with Haley between slitted blue eyes. I glare back at him and then stick my tongue out as a Capitol woman, teetering on ridiculously high heels, walks to the microphone and clears her throat.
She gives a brief history of the Games, even though we all know it already. Then she introduces the only surviving District 12 victor. His name is Lucas Scott, and he is 18 years old, just one year older than us. He has striking blue eyes and short blonde hair, that before his Games, I had often day dreamed about running my hands through. His mother runs the only restaurant in 12, reserved only for the wealthiest people. He lives in Town, and so any hope of making my day dreams reality had never been large. Then he became a Victor against all odds when he was fifteen.
He gives everyone a half-hearted smile before shoving his hands into the pockets of his black pants.
Then it is time for the actual Reaping, the reason we are all here. The woman places her hand in a large glass ball after making the usual "ladies first" joke. I hold my breath, gripping both Peyton and Haley's hands anxiously.
She unfolds a slip of paper and speaks into the microphone.
"Peyton Sawyer."
She says it and she sounds as if she is a thousand miles away. I can hear my heart pounding in my ears and Peyton's hand goes limp in mine as Haley gasps loudly, both of her hands flying to her mouth. I think I can see tears on her face, but I'm not sure.
My best friend has just been reaped. The one person on this Earth that I consider my family is going to be sent to fight till the death with twenty three other children, some that have been trained for this their entire lives.
Peyton doesn't move, and the Peacekeepers begin to move in on her. Just as one tries to grab her, I find myself pushing myself in front of her.
"I volunteer!" I scream. "I volunteer as tribute!"
I hear Peyton scream and I feel her hands pulling at my red dress, desperately trying to pull me backwards, but it is too late. I am officially a tribute in the 74th Hunger Games.
Nathan swoops in, lifting Peyton's kicking body and hauling her off before the Peacekeepers reach her. His blue eyes are full of pain as he nods at me grimly. I nod back and walk to the stage, listening to the stupid Capitol woman talking about what an honorable display I had created. I grit my teeth and force tears out of my green eyes as I stare out over the square. I catch Lucas Scott's eyes looking at me curiously, a brooding expression on his face. I ignore him and continue staring blankly.
The male tribute is called, and to my utter relief, the name that is called is not Nathan. It is an eighteen year old named Felix, and as horrible as it sounds, I am glad that it is him and not a twelve year old. He will stand a better chance. As we shake hands, he looks me up and down and gives me a sly wink, which causes me to shiver, and not in the way that I'm sure he intended. From the corner of my eye, I think I see Lucas Scott tense up, but I chalk it up to my own imagination.
I'm lead into the Justice Building for my goodbyes. The first to fly into the room is Peyton, tears flowing down her face as she launches herself at me in a vice grip.
"How could you do that?" she's sobbing. "Brooke, why? Please, you have to come back. Brooke you have to."
I stroke the back of her blonde curls and will myself to stay strong. "Peyton, you know I can't do that."
"No, Brooke," she says, still crying but suddenly fierce. She grabs my face in her hands and stares into my eyes. "People always leave. But not you."
I swallow hard. "Okay, Peyton. I promise I will do everything I can to come home."
She squeezes me again and tells me that she loves me. I yell it back to her as they lead her out of the room, and she is soon replaced with Nathan. He moves to me and kneels in front of me, looking me dead in the eyes.
"Okay, Cookie," he says seriously. "You can do this. You can throw knives. You're extremely flexible and very fast. You're a great tree climber, and I've taught you some self-defense."
"Nathan," I whisper, my voice breaking as I let the tears fall. "We both know I can't do this."
"Shut up," he says harshly, pulling me to him and tucking my head under his chin. I feel him kiss the top of my head and I allow myself to enjoy his warmth for the last time. "You're coming home, Davis."
They come for him, too, and I panic. "Nathan! Take care of Peyton! Make sure to watch her on the 14th of every month, that's her bad day. Don't let her stay with my mother. Please, make sure she eats!"
"I will!" he yells back.
Then I say something unexpected.
"Look out for Haley James, too!" I shout, and I'm not even sure why I do. "She's a good friend. She's going to need someone."
His eyes widen in surprise, but then the doors are closed, and Haley James herself enters the room, her eyes red rimmed.
"Hi Brooke," she whispers, looking around as if she doesn't belong in the room with me. I smile at her weakly and roughly brush tears from my eyes that linger there after Nathan's visit.
"Hey, Haley."
"I know we don't know each other all that well," she says in her soft voice. She thrusts her hand out at me. "They let each Tribute bring back a token from home, and I thought maybe you could wear this. It was my sister's. She died in the Games when I was five. It was her locket."
I'm shocked by this knowledge, and I look at the beautiful locket in awe. It is engraved with beautiful fire, representative of where we come from. I accept it and thank her, giving her an abrupt but somehow not uncomfortable hug.
"Haley, I really appreciate all that you've done for Peyton."
"I know," she smiles softly. "And I appreciate all you've done for Nathan Lee."
At this point, I cannot hide my shock. She obviously notices and explains herself.
"Before he and Deb were sent to the Seam, he and I were quite close, you know," she says wistfully. "He was my best friend. My only friend. But after that, he wouldn't talk to me anymore. I tried and tried, but he was so dark, and so young…"
She trails off, and I know exactly what version of Nathan Lee she's talking about. I nod at her.
"He's a good man," I say. "Who knows, maybe he'll come back into your life."
A brief spark flashes in her eye, and then she regains her composure, practiced with years of being in the spotlight as the mayor's daughter.
"Good luck, Brooke. I really think you can win. You have to win."
With that, she sees herself out, and I stare after her, puzzled and confused. I don't have much time to ruminate on the things I have just learned about Haley James before I'm being led from the room and to the train that will take me to the Capitol.
As I stare out the window and the train lurches into movement, all I can think to myself is that I really hope that for once in my life, the odds really will be in my favor.
I promised Peyton I would come home. And that's what I'm going to do.